Inside Peter Thiel's Genius Factory (backchannel.com) 165
In 2011 the Thiel Fellowship "was created to prove that a college degree doesn't matter," writes Backchannel, saying it's now evolved into something much more Silicon Valley. mirandakatz quotes their article:
What began as an attempt to draw teen prodigies to the Valley before they racked up debt at Princeton or Harvard and went into consulting to pay it off has transformed into the most prestigious network for young entrepreneurs in existence -- a pedigree that virtually guarantees your ideas will be judged good, investors will take your call, and there will always be another job ahead even better than the one you have.
This year's class are all established entrepreneurs -- some of whom have already graduated from college, according to the article, although having at least "stopped out" at some point remains a requirement for the program. "It's offensive, the way people ask about it," one fellow tells the reporter, who summarized his belief that "To go back [to Stanford] would imply personal failure. Why would he ever do that? He had his network started already, and clearly the opportunities came through the network... This network, he contended, was far more valuable than any he could build in college -- even at Stanford."
This year's class are all established entrepreneurs -- some of whom have already graduated from college, according to the article, although having at least "stopped out" at some point remains a requirement for the program. "It's offensive, the way people ask about it," one fellow tells the reporter, who summarized his belief that "To go back [to Stanford] would imply personal failure. Why would he ever do that? He had his network started already, and clearly the opportunities came through the network... This network, he contended, was far more valuable than any he could build in college -- even at Stanford."
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And like most Slashdot readers you are opining on the subject before you even read the full article - which notes the program didn't start out like that at all.
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It doesn't matter, he typed 'Trump' before 'Thiel' in his comment, and so tipped his hand as to who and what he was ranting about. It wasn't necessary for him to read the article, his mind was made up.
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But the program evolved into the success it is now, so the very act of starting it was a success to begin with. It seems really odd to claim it "was not a success before" when in a few years it is obviously so; it would be like saying the first iPod was "not a success" because the absolute numbers sold were not high compared to the peak of sales.
Re:In before whining about Thiel backing Trump... (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we whine about the editors continually offering up tech billionaires for hero worship?
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When they quit spamming the front page with articles worshiping Musk, sure, you can.
But I've never heard a parrot whine. Is it even possible? Shouldn't you squawk instead?
Genius my ass... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, particularly since running a "successful" business only requires a certain minimum level of "cleverness" and relies much more on business connections.
Just look at Research in Motion (aka Blackberry). That company is largely run by idiots which chase the iPhone and contradict their main claim (security) by cooperating with everybody on breaking their devices up to a point where they send your e-mail login data to a central server.
Re:Genius my ass... (Score:4, Insightful)
"And, as someone else pointed out, this place doesn't create geniuses, it only collects them. Take average kids and see how much better they do here, and if they turn out geniuses, THEN you can call it a genius factory"
^^^^^THIS, 100%^^^^^^^
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But then: "a pedigree that virtually guarantees your ideas will be judged good, investors will take your call, and there will always be an
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i.e.: don't be an introvert
It's hard not to be an introvert if you are one, but even as an introvert you can still work at being somewhat successful in the sort of things (networking, socializing) that come naturally to extroverts. Point is: as an introvert you won't only have to work at being "social" , it is likely something you won't enjoy doing all that much, and thus tempting to put off or ignore completely.
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It has value to those who are in it. Just like any cabal.
But if anyone is trying to pass this off as Capitalism 4.0 or a universal panacea they're selling snake oil.
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I was going to throw in the description "an intellectually inbred" organization where no real innovation will come from. Innovation usually comes from imaginative outsiders in the arts and sciences. This is just a mutual admiration club that will reinforce the current establishment.
Remember, innovation and entrepreneurship is not the same thing. Starting a business and getting funding is not the same as developing new technologies.
Re:the dyslexic pimp (Score:2)
So more of a warehouse than a factory?
Made for millenials (Score:1, Troll)
"It's offensive, the way people ask about it," one fellow tells the reporter
Sounds perfect for entitled millenials. I wonder when the house of cards will come crashing down in their lives.
Re:Made for millenials (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop ragging on millennials. This is a much older pattern where the establishment elite reinforce their own success. Most millennials I have met have been good people.
Yet another attack on public education (Score:5, Insightful)
What this really represents is yet another way to attack education, especially public education. If you've actually been a teacher, then you should know that the most important thing about the best students is to avoid holding them back. Thiel is just exploiting this reality to make public education look bad: "See you don't need an education so the government should stop taxing rich people like me to educate you bums."
The people Thiel is picking for this program would have been extremely successful even if they had gotten more of that traditional education. However, if you take the very best and brightest with the highest motivation, and then you make sure they have the resources to learn whatever they need for their work, they are almost certain to succeed. In this case, I'm sure the house (Thiel) is even rigging the game, pumping in extra money and guidance to make sure there aren't any failures because the REAL point is to make education look like the failure.
This is just an extension of the dismembering of public education that has been going on for many decades. The best students are streamed into elite schools and most of the students are given obedience training to make them docile wage slaves, easily handled prison inmates, and obedient consumers who will buy the right soap and vote for the right political candidates, just the way the ads tell them to behave.
Worked pretty much exactly as they wanted it to and now it's time to harvest the whirlwind. Most American workers can't compete, and it's only going to get worse going forward. Much worse.
But the richest 0.1% will do better than ever. Government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1% shall rule the earth?
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NO; youÃre qdocile zqge slqve becquse[1]
I'll come in again.
No, you're a docile wage slave because you lack any reading comprehension skills at all.
[1] BTW, if anyone knows how to stop Win 8.1 randomly changing keyboard layouts, can they tell me?
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The question wasn't how I can change it; I know that (it's Win-spacebar).
The question was to stop Winduhs changing it, so I don't fucking have to change it back if I go for a piss and the screensaver kicks in.
Common sense would indicate, would it not, that someone generally will be quite aware of when he wants to change it? It's difficult to plug in an external keyboard by accident.
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No. The most likely difference was that you took a technical subject, so you were too busy receiving a 'vocational education'* to be properly indoctrinated.
* As we are constantly reminded by liberal arts majors: University is for brainwashing, not for job training.
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What this really represents is yet another way to attack education, especially public education...
With regards to "public" education, I believe the mainpoint this concept is trying to prove is that one does not have to go into mind-numbing crushing debt, brought to you by higher education, in order to succeed. If anything, this proves the value of the public education one receives essentially for free, is good enough.
But the richest 0.1% will do better than ever. Government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1% shall rule the earth?
And that shit will continue right up until the slave labor class has had enough of it, and eats the rich. Nothing else will stop it.
Re:Yet another attack on public education (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you'd like to succeed in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, statistics, economics, computer science (not programming), electrical or chemical or mechanical or civil engineering, law, medicine, architecture, etc.
In short, if you are good at cherry picking and gluing stuff together around the edges of hard work that others have taken the time and money for the deep training that requires math and theory, then you might succeed in making money. Standing on the shoulders of giants requires the giants actually be there.
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Unless you'd like to succeed in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, statistics, economics, computer science (not programming), electrical or chemical or mechanical or civil engineering, law, medicine, architecture, etc.
Gosh, I wonder how humanity ever survived learning and training these concepts for hundreds of years without spending $100,000+ on it. Sadly, liability drives the need for a degree today more than anything else. Otherwise, the wise and experienced elders working within the field of expertise could likely provide an education that exceeds that of a classroom, especially when 40% of your curriculum will not be used or relied upon after graduation, clarifying the money grab that it is. And Peter's point sta
Re:Yet another attack on public education (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you'd like to succeed in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, statistics, economics, computer science (not programming), electrical or chemical or mechanical or civil engineering, law, medicine, architecture, etc.
Gosh, I wonder how humanity ever survived learning and training these concepts for hundreds of years without spending $100,000+ on it.
For most of human history, becoming a scientist required that either you be wealthy, or that you find a wealthy patron. For most of human history, there were not very many scientists, and scientific progress was very slow. If we go back to the first condition, we can expect to obtain the second condition as well.
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For most of human history, studying science or medicine required the person to first waste years and fill his mind with useless trivia about a 'holy book' written by goat herders. Also about the convoluted interpretations of same that allow followers to believe/behave anyway they want anyhow.
At least engineering education came out ot military schools. Much more practical.
Let's not forget that all the 'educated' had to transact their business in a long dead language.
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If I ever got a mod point, I'd give one to you. Probably "insightful" in that case. Pretty sure you are wasting the rationality on a Libertarian holier-and-smarter-than-thou fanatic.
I would have worded your point slightly differently, in that for most of human history the vast majority of people were engaged in subsistence agriculture (or subsistence hunting and gathering before that). Scientific progress depended on the accumulation of the tiny surpluses of large numbers of workers, many of whom actually w
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Not the point. The point is that nowadays when yo go for a job you're competing against people who do have that bit of paper. It's the educational arms race.
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just what we need more retard business people with no education running everything.
To clarify the purpose of this concept, those "retards" will own the business.
Then they will start pulling all those educated "smart" people out of the unemployment line to run the business.
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Right. Because owners never meddle, they just let the professionals get on with doing their job.
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The best students are streamed into elite schools and most of the students are given obedience training to make them docile wage slaves, easily handled prison inmates, and obedient consumers who will buy the right soap and vote for the right political candidates, just the way the ads tell them to behave.
If that is the purpose of public education, then it needs to die a quick death.
If you are a teacher and that is what you try to do, then you should be fired immediately.
You speak as though kids were dogs. Education is not 'behavior training.'
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I'm responding on the theory that you are a victim of the kind of bad education that I described. Specifically, you don't seem to read well.
Rather than actually respond to your misunderstandings, which would be basically to repeat what I already wrote, I'm just going to ask you to reread my comment. If you are still unable to understand it, then you should ask questions about the parts you cannot understand. If you still think you disagree (and that is the apparent tone of your reply, even if there was no s
What do you really want? (Score:1)
Sounds to me that you don't know what you want. You say it's an attack on public education, then go on to indict it - correctly I might add. You also don't like what he's doing - skimming the cream off the top.
Let's start at the beginning, schools in America were started by religious orders, such as the Catholics to teach people how to read the bible. They moved on of course to teach a lot more. Then the government got involved and made public schools. They were very successful and they had a LOT of religio
Greed and stupidity (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, to make a large amount of money, you do not need a real education. Just have a talent to rip-off people.
In order to qualify as "genius" in modern times and be able to actually contribute to society, as opposed destroying wealth (as so many of those that amassed personal riches routinely do), a PhD in your chosen field is about the minimum. Without that, you will never get deep enough into a subject to really understand it and to really understand the difference it makes to really understand it.
Methink
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In order to qualify as "genius" in modern times and be able to actually contribute to society, as opposed destroying wealth (as so many of those that amassed personal riches routinely do), a PhD in your chosen field is about the minimum.
The whole 'PhD' thing is locked down in thick layers of conformity. You need to 'play well with others' in order to work your way through post-graduate studies. And that whole mess is locked up by climbers who've made academia an insular elite network.
Sure, to make a large
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In order to qualify as "genius" in modern times and be able to actually contribute to society, as opposed destroying wealth (as so many of those that amassed personal riches routinely do), a PhD in your chosen field is about the minimum.
The whole 'PhD' thing is locked down in thick layers of conformity. You need to 'play well with others' in order to work your way through post-graduate studies. And that whole mess is locked up by climbers who've made academia an insular elite network.
Sure, there are issues. But in actual reality, there is no alternative to it if you really need to get deep into a topic.
Sure, to make a large amount of money
Are you resentful because you chose the academic track and instead of leaving the campus to live a life after graduating, you stayed within the insular ranks? Too bad.
Complete, fail at Ad Hominem. Pathetic. While I am still doing applied research as part of my job and some teaching on the side, I am in a pretty well-paid industrial position. Your argument is as clueless as it is worthless.
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You don't need a PHD to get 'deep into a topic.' You just need motivation, time, and resources. Explain to me how that is not an alternative?
Just having a PHD doesn't make you smarter than everyone else in the room - just like having any other certification for that matter. I've met geniuses that didn't have any education beyond their primary education, and I've met stupid people holding advanced degrees wasting oxygen and space.
I'm also not anti-intellectual. Expanding your intellect does not requi
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Sorry, but I did not say doing a PhD does give you deep insight into a topic, I said that realistically it is the only way to get that deep insight if you otherwise have what it takes. Many people with a PhD do not and basically wasted their time. I hope you can see that there is an implication here and it has a direction.
The thing is that for almost all people, acquiring the "motivation, time, and resources" needed is not feasible any other way.
More junk at the expense of knowledge (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re: More junk at the expense of knowledge (Score:2)
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And the reality is, that for 99.9% of what you do, you don't need anything beyond 1920s physics. As one of my electrical engineering profs used to say:
If you're using more than Freshman Physics, you're thinking too hard
Just last week I had to explain to a landscape contractor reworking my backyard why my water level (20 feet of clear tube) was much more accurate for measuring the tilt in the water feature than his digital, 2' long level. His level showed "0 degrees" - flat. My water level showed a 1" slo
This quote, from the end of the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thiel set out to disrupt the existing educational institutions. He suggested he could do a better job at training a small cohort of gifted individuals, and that once free of the shackles of a conformist degree-making institution, these fellows would be capable of jumpstarting human progress.
So, you know influencers - Big Fucking Deal - I want people who know how to do things, and get them done on schedule, on budget, and done right. I don't give a shit if you know how to get to know other people who also only know how to get to know other people.
Furthermore, I consider it essential that when I make a reference to a major historical event, piece of art, literature, music, you understand why that reference applies to our current conversation. I also consider it essential that your education allows you to draw upon a variety of knowledge in order to make good decisions. And you simply will not get that education by working 18 hours a day on whizz-bang.bullshit-me-to-death.com, because all the buzzwords in the world don't contribute at all to the benefit of society.
My company does not exist solely to make me rich, it exists to allow me to explore ideas which can be turned into real physical products which actually help people in some way, usually labor saving, sometimes life saving (or enhancing), but never parasitic. Because *anyone* can be a parasite, and pretend to "manage influencer relationships", whatever the hell that means.
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I would expect any educated person, from any country or culture, to know about Plato, Confucious, Siddharta Gautama, Galileo, maybe John Locke, and others I can't roll off my tongue right now. They should also understand the concepts behind basic Logic, Rhetoric, Poetry, and Prose, and other cornerstones of learning. There are some ideas, thinkers, and facts that - to my mind - are pre-requisite knowledge to claiming an education in anything.
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Plato, Confucious, Siddharta Gautama, Galileo, maybe John Locke
At one point I could tell you all of their philosophy, but the memory locations have been replaced with knowledge of Java classes.
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It's the liberal educators that have abandoned 'liberal education'. About the only school in America still teaching it is 'The University of Chicago'. The rest are full tilt into progressive indoctrination and are too busy to read 'dead white men'.
Genius; give me a fucking breath (Score:2)
Geniuses don't wrack up debt at Harvard (Score:3)
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1600 SAT?
Old man.
I see your spacebar, and raise you 1997^HTML5 (Score:2)
It's funny the next Slashdot story is on Pogue complaining about breaking the space bar page-at-a-time scrolling convention by littering the frame with advanced wanker-bling web design (seriously, who ordered all this poptastic page cruft in the first place?)
So check out backchannel.com.
backchannel.com is formatting pull quotes as img objects, and the text of the article title is also an img object, impervious to search, much less cut and paste.
Never assume malice where stupidity is an adequate explanation
Cult (Score:2)
Re: And THIS Is Why Trump Won! (Score:2, Insightful)
Trump won because the democrats put forward the weakest possible candidate, who nevertheless had a comfortable lead, but did all the wrong things and lost.
The "Russian hackers", of which we have yet to see anything resembling evidence, were not the problem.
Hillary's image, her atrocious handling of the email scandals, and the timely "help" from the FBI were much more relevant.
Just like the Bernie bros told ya.
Re:Russia Hacked the GOP too (Score:4)
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She lost the election. Accept that as a fact and get on with your life.
Did she? DJT is not President yet [slate.com]. Normally, that would seem like a technicality, but this year...
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You can keep throwing fuel in the Hillary Fever fire if you wish. The flames will die out in a few weeks.
Prolong your pain, it's like wiggling that loose tooth to experience that mysteriously appealing little twinge of pain.
If you and your kind insist on fanning those flames, don't be surprised if you're pushed into the fire to fucking burn. Most of the rest of us will feel bad that it happened to you afterwards, but we won't let you burn down the whole place.
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As opposed to the fact that they definitely had blackmail power on Hillary?
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Remove the super delegates and she lost the nomination.
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No, Russia didn't. [craigmurray.org.uk]
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hating white men more than the Nazis hated Jews
Provide evidence of systematic and direct genocide of... I'll be be generous... 3 million white people. I have popcorn.
Re: And THIS Is Why Trump Won! (Score:1)
Ah yes, the oppression of the white man. Always being held down by.....I'm sorry, I forgot. Can you remind me who?
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Trump won because white men didn't look the other way, which would be a very relevant percentage.
White men didn't look the other way or stay apathetic, because they were incited and angered.
They were incited and angered, because some religious anti-white-male Jihad/Crusade kept insulting them, degrading them, and being condescending towards them for the past decade or more.
Condescending self-righteous hate against white males turned them from quiet organisms into a "I'm throwing a brick out the window, have my middle finger all of you shits" retaliatory force.
Those same collectives who are so passionate about hating white men more than the Nazis hated Jews, are now still insulting white men and wondering why the tactic of still poking them with sticks doesn't make them vote their way.
And because of that unbridled, reckless, self-righteous, condescending crusade against white males, they are going to keep losing.
So keep the insults going. Keep blaming white males for anything and everything. Keep degrading them. And they will decide "since i'm branded as evil in such a generalized way, i might as well abide and become".
Ah so denigrating white males is bad but Mexicans, women & black people have to keep on sucking it up.
Thanks for clearing that up. And fuck you very much.
FYI, the white voter is losing the demographic race; unless the GOP manages to continue their rather diligent voter suppression, several of the Solid South will be swing states in a decade.
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FYI, the white voter is losing the demographic race; unless the GOP manages to continue their rather diligent voter suppression, several of the Solid South will be swing states in a decade.
FYI, Hispanics are not 'naturally leftist' and it's racist to make that kind of assumption. As the Hispanic demographic is welcomed into the fold of Americans (USians??) they will settle down and their natural conservatism will manifest. It already does in many regards.
Significant parts of the Hispanic demographic are '
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"FYI, Hispanics are not 'naturally leftist' and it's racist to make that kind of assumption"
" As the Hispanic demographic is welcomed into the fold of Americans (USians??) they will settle down and their natural conservatism will manifest"
Wait a second - did the same personality write both those sentences or are the voices in your head taking turns?
FYI, assuming Latinos to have a manifest natural conservatism is racist.
Time will tell how the demographic shift plays out but the white American voter i
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Also America as a whole has done a piss-poor job of "welcoming" Latino immigrants
Re: And THIS Is Why Trump Won! (Score:2)
Hillary is married to a white man. I don't recall her bashing white men, do you have any other straw men to beat?
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"His argument is that we don't need them HERE (in the US), not that we don't need them"
And I doubt anyone *needs* the US to be in their country so time to get Americans out of all the places they're not wanted and back home where they belong.
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Europe needed Americans after WWII. To avoid speaking Russian. They knew it too.
Same with Japan and the Philippines, only to avoid speaking Chinese.
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Europe needed Americans after WWII. To avoid speaking Russian. They knew it too.
Same with Japan and the Philippines, only to avoid speaking Chinese.
That was a long time ago. The USA has done a terrible job of being Team America World Police.
Pull them all out, including from the Middle East and Guantanamo Bay.
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It is time for Europe and first world Asia to pay a fair share of the costs.
Someday Russia and China too. But first, they need changes of government.
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" it's a lamb farm where they smoke grass and suck titties till all that bs is out of their system"
So can't we shift that back to their high school years so we can get a few more productive working years out of them?
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"try getting out of your suburb once in a while and see the city and the world"
try taking your own advice before dispensing it to others. If you had & if you had a clue of history, you'd know that young people were out in the workforce, required to act responsibly, at much younger ages than now. A lot of that was detrimental but too many 1st world kids have too much wasted free time.
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Here's something I learned in the 3rd grade:
What people want for their kids and what's good for them are often very far apart
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Calm the fuck down, fuckface.
My vision is quite poor and I wasn't replying to your comment from my usual computer with its larger screens so I only noticed the first line. That's what I replied to.
"us non-ugly happy normal people". /. is like telling everyone you have a big dick.
Right. Saying that on the internet, especially on
If you're making the claim, we know it's a fucking lie.
"don't no one give a fuck what you think is good for other people's kids"
Don't no one who don't give a fuck goes to the trouble
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You're right about the 1/2 blind nerd. The rest sounds like you're projecting.
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"you're like the kid who shit his pants and thinks no one noticed so he keeps being loud"
That's one of your personal anecdotes I really didn't need to know but common politeness dictates I thank you for sharing.
So, thanks.